On the opening night of Christmas Tree Lane, which is located on Van Ness Blvd between Shields Ave and Shaw Ave in Fresno, California, millions of lights are turned on at 6:00 p.m. and remain lit until 10:00 p.m. Some 140 homes and 300 trees are decorated and the display spans nearly two miles. The free event is sponsored by the Fig Garden Homeowners Association.

Drivers access Christmas Tree Lane from Shields and drive north to Shaw.

Holiday Hours
From 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday. From 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. During these times, traffic on Van Ness is northbound only.

Saturday, Dec. 1 and Tuesday, Dec. 11, are Walk Nights and belong to walkers only. No driving on Christmas Treehane will be alowed. On those days, Van Ness Boulevard is closed to vehicles from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Tree Fresno will be providing bus rides from the north east section of Fig Garden Village in the Financial Center area for the two walk nights. For more information regarding the bus service, please contact Tree Fresno at 559.221.5556. All the other December days are open to vehicle traffic.

The lane tour of old-fashioned displays is free. Donations are appreciated along the lane to help pay the cost of installing the lights along county property, which takes three months of professional labor by a hard-working guy named Shawn Caglia. The non-profit lane project is supported by contributions.

Facts
*Christmas Tree Lane celebrates its 85th anniversary in 2007, making it one of the longest-running holiday events nationwide.

* It began in 1920 with the decoration of a single tree in the memory of a child who died. The lane went dark in 1941 [wartime restrictions] and 1973 [energy crisis].

* The lane has made the Washington Post as a holiday tradition.

* Lane coordinators have improved energy efficiency with better wiring, cutting power requirements by nearly 50 percent over the past eight years.

* More than 100,000 people visit Christmas Tree Lane each year.